This is an update of a deal I posted earlier this year. The first time around, it sold out very quickly, but this time I'm assured the vendor has some 5,000 units in stock.

Not wild about the audio coming from your laptop? No surprise there -- it's fairly miraculous that manufacturers manage to squeeze in speakers at all.

And yet many folks use their laptops as media centers in dens, offices, and bedrooms. So how can you get more aural enjoyment from your games, movies, and music?

Simple: add a sound bar. Even an inexpensive one should offer a huge improvement over the tiny, tinny speakers built into your system. If nothing else, it projects the sound forward instead of down, out, or up (depending on where the internal speakers are mounted).

The VAUSBLS1 is a 10-watt speaker bar that clips to the top of your laptop LCD. It plugs into a USB port for both power and audio feeds -- meaning you don't have to worry about batteries or external power.

Would this work with a small TV as well? I don't think so; while some models have powered USB ports, none (that I know of) can also route audio through those ports. The VAUSBLS1 has no 3.5mm stereo input, so you can't plug it into, say, a headphone jack.

Still, for laptop users seeking a nice audio upgrade at an even nicer price, this is hard to beat.